Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered. Please note that access will not be permitted 15 minutes after the start of the event.
This event will be held in English.
Organized by the Columbia Global Paris Center and Tara Keny-Boccacci, with participating curators from the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, the Art Museum and College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University, the Delaware White-line Woodcut Guild, the Evaul Studios, Keny Galleries, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Musée d’Orsay.
With the generous support of Sara McNealey and Liberty Atlantic.
To be notified of upcoming Paris Global Center events, we invite you to sign up for our monthly newsletter.
—
This symposium will be livestreamed. Register here to access the Zoom for Day 1 (Monday, October 12). Register here to access the Zoom for Day 2 (Tuesday, October 13).
Drawn Together explores a circle of influential American women artists who worked on paper in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. At the center of this transatlantic network were Maud Hunt Squire, Ethel Mars, and Edna Boies Hopkins.
As members of the American Woman's Art Association in the Latin Quarter, these artists exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic and attracted significant critical attention. Their artistic achievements, professional networks, and mentorship influenced other artists in Paris, including Margaret Patterson, Ada Gilmore, Blanche Lazzell, Mildred McMillen, and Juliette Nichols. Alice Schille was another influential member of the Association working on paper who exhibited alongside these women in both Paris and Provincetown.
With the outbreak of the First World War, the artistic, personal, and intellectual relationships they had cultivated in Paris found new expression in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Between 1915 and 1920, members of this circle played a pivotal role in the formation of the Provincetown Printers, one of the most celebrated printmaking collectives in early twentieth-century America.
By bringing their intertwined lives and creative legacies into focus, this symposium offers a rare opportunity to explore a vibrant chapter of transatlantic cultural history.
Program
Monday, October 12
09h00 Welcome Coffee
09h30 – 12h30 New York to Paris: Mapping Friendships, Studies, and Artistic Exchange
Setting the Scene: Opening Remarks by Brunhilde Biebuyck and Tara Keny-Boccacci
Institutions and Artistic Networks
- From the Art Students League in New York to the American Girls Art Club in Paris: Opening Wide the Doors for American Women Artists
J. Bernard Schultz - The Girls' Art Club and the American Woman's Art Association
Brunhilde Biebuyck - Making an Artist: Education, Opportunity, and Women Artists in Paris (Video Presentation)
William H. Robinson
Individual Artistic Journeys
- “Full of Panache:” Ethel Mars and Maud Hunt Squire
Tara Keny-Boccacci - Edna Boies Hopkins: Avant-Garde Printmaker, Modern Woman
James M. Keny - Blanche Lazzell in Paris: “At Last I Am In My Element”
Mary Louise Soldo Schultz - Ada Gilmore and Mildred “Dolly” McMillen: Companions and Collaborators
William Evaul
Followed by discussion and questions.
Tuesday, October 13
9h30 Film Screening: Schille, introduced by Tara Keny-Boccacci
Directed by Irene Kim Chin and Kurt Vincent, this Emmy nominated, thirty-minute documentary distributed by PBS explores the life and work of twentieth-century American watercolorist Alice Schille, a member of the Girls’ Art Club. The film examines her career, her rediscovery, and the process of curating a retrospective of her work (30 mins).
10h00–12h15 From Studios and Exhibitions to Museum Collections
- Collecting American Women Printmakers in Early Twentieth-Century Paris: Jacques Doucet, Clément-Janin, and the Acquisition Strategies of the Bibliothèque d'art et d'archéologie
Eléa Sicre - Collections in Context: Provincetown Prints at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Meghan Melvin - The Curator as Advocate: Sustaining Blanche Lazzell's Legacy
Robert Bridges - The Musée d'Orsay's Recent Maud Squire Acquisitions and Transatlantic Exhibitions (Video Presentation)
Caroline Corbeau-Parsons - Contemporary Expressions of the Provincetown Print
Fred Dylla
The symposium will conclude with an evening event on Tuesday, October 13.
Speakers
- Brunhilde Biebuyck
Director, Reid Hall and Columbia Global Paris Center - Robert Bridges
Curator, Art Museum of West Virginia University - Caroline Corbeau-Parsons (video)
Curator of Graphic Arts, Musée d'Orsay - Marie Doezema
Associate Director of Special Projects, Columbia Global Paris Center - Fred Dylla
Physicist, artist, art and science historian, founder of the Delaware White-line Woodcut Guild, Lewes, Delaware - William Evaul
Artist, writer, educator, Evaul Studios, Provincetown, Massachusetts - James M. Keny
Art historian and gallerist, Keny Galleries, Columbus, Ohio - Tara Keny-Boccacci
Art historian and independent curator, former Modern Women’s Fund Curatorial Assistant, Museum of Modern Art, New York - Meghan Melvin
Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - William H. Robinson (video)
Author, Royal Academy of Arts, former Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Senior Curator of Modern European Art, Cleveland Museum of Art - J. Bernard Schultz
Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Art History, College of Creative Arts, West Virginia University - René Shoemaker
Artist. Faculty Emerita, University of Georgia; René Shoemaker Art studios in Athens, GA & Aubusson, France - Eléa Sicre
Art historian and Prints Collections Officer, Institut national d'histoire de l'art - Mary Louise Soldo Schultz
Retired faculty member and administrator in the Honors College at West Virginia University - Diane J. Squire
DJSquire Designs, great-niece of Maud Squire
—
This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.
